Man missing for 30 years remembers identity

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NIAGARA FALLS, Canada _ Missing for decades, one man just solved his own missing persons case, according to Canadian police.

For 30 years, a Canadian man lived under a different name with an apparently unknown past and didn’t know he had any relatives, until now, according to the Niagara Regional Police.

After landing in front of a social worker on January 7, a 51-year-old man suddenly remembered who he was: His real name was Edgar Latulip and he was from Kitchener, Canada.

That’s when the memories started to come back.

Latulip apparently left his hometown of Kitchener back in 1986 on a bus destined for Niagara Falls, according to Constable Phil Gavin, a spokesperson for the Niagara Regional Police Department.

After arriving in Niagara Falls, Latulip reportedly made his way to St. Catharines Ontario. On his way he somehow fell and suffered a head injury which “robbed him of his memory and identity,” Gavin said.

Latulip remained in the city of St. Catharines for the next 30 years, living independently, according to Gavin. Authorities are wary of revealing too much about Latulip’s life over the last 30 years out of concern for his privacy.

When Latulip had the apparent epiphany about his name, the social worker, who police are not identifying because of privacy concerns, immediately researched his name and came across an unsolved missing persons case and a cold case news article from a neighboring town paper written in 2014 that matched his recollections. Latulip’s case was then referred to the Niagara Police Department where detectives interviewed him. He continued remembering things he hadn’t recalled in 30 years, according to Gavin.

Latulip provided the Niagara Police Department with a sample of DNA to be tested against a relative who was living in Waterloo at the time. The DNA sample was then sent to a laboratory which confirmed a match on February 5.

Authorities contacted his mother who now resides in Ottawa and told her the good news.

“She was very excited, as you would expect to be after not seeing a family member after 30 years,” Gavin said.

CNN affiliate CTV spoke with Latulip’s mother, Silvia Wilson, over the phone. She told them she was overwhelmed by her son’s return but hasn’t spoken to him yet.

For years, Latulip’s mother, believed her son may have been abused and taken advantage of because of a developmental disorder he had that left him with a childlike mental capacity.

The North American Missing Persons Network listed Edgar Latulip on its website on Thursday as 21 years old when he was last seen in Kitchener, Ontario on September 2, 1986. It continues:

“He left his residence without his medication. It is possible that he took a bus to Niagara Falls. Latulip suffers from mental health problems and is developmentally delayed (mental capacity of a 12-year-old.)”

The Niagara Police Department and local St. Catharines community partners are working to reunite mother and son.